The Other Side of the Fourth Wall

Stealth sequences are difficult to get right, especially in games in which players can usually get away with not being stealthy for most of the game. It can be difficult to balance those sequences in terms of difficulty, adequately prepare players for them or give them the tools necessary to stay stealthy. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker's Forsaken Fortress is one such example, and I will use it to show why many stealth sections in non-stealth games are needlessly frustrating. First, an introduction to the level. It's Link's first destination after leaving his hometown of Outset Island, and he is trying to save his sister Aryll. Unfortunately, he ends up losing his sword after being shot into the fortress, and is left defenseless. He must sneak through the fortress, and being spotted by a searchlight or caught by a guard will result in him being thrown in a cell. The Problems With The Forsaken Fortress The first and most important problem is that this level is unforgiving.

  Spoilers for The World Ends Wth You and its sequel follow Believe it or not, the fact that The World Ends With You and its sequel, Neo: The World Ends With You, don't end after the first week is supposed to be a surprise. Unfortunately, the surprise is spoiled by ample gameplay and story-related evidence, which makes it hard to swallow that the story would end so soon. The Original Let's recap the situation on the seventh day of the first week. Neku and Shiki are the only pair of players left in the Reaper's Game; Beat was saved after his partner Rhyme's erasure on Day 4, but his future is uncertain. The objective this time is to fight and defeat the Game Master, Higashizawa. This sounds like a climactic battle, doesn't it? On closer examination, however, it seems to be a bit too early for the climax. At this point, the player has only played for a few hours, and TWEWY would be a rather short RPG if it were to end at this point. While Higashizawa is a significant

Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair Spoilers Most of us can think of a few characters we dislike for various reasons, and often, we believe the stories they're in would be better off without them. But sometimes, it's difficult to remove characters the audience dislikes without adversely affecting the narrative. Kotoba Gaikoku from Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair is one example, as while he seems like an unfunny perverted comic relief character(and to some degree, he is), he plays a crucial role in the story. Who Kotoba Is First, let's explain who Kotoba is and why he's so unlikable. Kotoba is the best friend of Taiko Kikai. He's a notorious pervert who has a thing for both guys and girls, but has especially strong feelings for Momoko Mori, and dislikes her boyfriend Hiro Shiratake for reasons that are not entirely related to romantic jealousy. The first problem is evident- the fact that he's a pervert. It's difficult to write perverts well, since perversion tends

If you're a regular consumer of anime, you've likely seen many flashbacks that take you back to something you've already seen, from the beginning of the series to earlier that episode. Many people find them to be little more than wastes of time, which is understandable, but they can also serve useful purposes. To begin with, as a note of clarification, this is not referring to flashbacks that show character backstories and new material, from scenes that are a couple minutes long to entire story arcs. Instead, this is about scenes that have already been shown before. One reason flashbacks can be necessary is to remind viewers what is going on or past events they may have forgotten. As a non-anime example, The World Ends With You establishes early on that Neku has two Player Pins, but he doesn't understand why. At the very end of the game, one of Neku's Player Pins is destroyed, but the spare allows him to keep going, and the game flashes back to that scene to remind

In Persona 3 and onward, various Social Links exist to allow you to spend time with your party members and other acquaintances, deepening your connections with them over several in-game events and making you stronger. In order to get from one event to the other, you must build trust with them by spending time with them and choosing the correct responses, but sometimes, the game halts your progress until your social stats meet certain requirements. The game tracks your progress in social statistics, from intelligence to courage; sometimes, you will need a certain social stat to keep up with your friend, and other times, you will need it to compensate for their deficiencies. Here is a list of some of the more onerous stat gates. They are ranked according to how high the requirements are and when in the game they become available. While the requirements usually take precedence, a high stat requirement will take precedence over a lower one if it is available earlier on. Each example will h